Silva gets a contract offer from Mariners

The Mariners don’t have any plans for announcing the acquisition of new starting pitching.

They’d like to be able to do that however, and they’re approaching the issue on several fronts.

They have been talking with Carlos Silva, a right-handed starter who was a groundball-inducing machine during his time with the Minnesota Twins. Fox.com says Seattle has a four-year, $44 million offer out to him.

The Mariners were one of about 10 teams to have a scout on hand Monday when Kris Benson threw a bullpen session for scouts. Benson, who missed last year with injury problems, has to prove he has recovered velocity, and the Monday reports were good.

And Seattle continues to talk trade, for the moment focusing on Orioles left-hander Erik Bedard. While some Baltimore sources say the Mariners are the front-runners to land Bedard, it’s not clear how high a price the Mariners are willing to pay to add Bedard to their rotation.

If it takes both Brandon Morrow and Adam Jones to seal the deal, the Mariners would have to take about 200 deep breaths before they’d sign off on that one.